Ambrose Evans Pritchard calls it "Spain's Sovereign Thunderclap." Indeed, the Spanish have given the back of their hand to the EU with regard to further austerity measures because Spain can't reach the deficit goals set by Brussels for EU countries to follow: The Spanish rebellion has begun, sooner and more dramatically than I expected. As many readers will already have seen, Premier Mariano Rajoy has refused point blank to comply with the austerity demands of the European Commission and the European Council (hijacked by Merkozy). Taking what he called a "sovereign decision", he simply announced that he intends to ignore the EU deficit target of 4.4pc of GDP for this year, setting his own target of 5.8pc instead (down from 8.5pc in 2011). In the twenty years or so that I have been following EU affairs closely, I cannot remember such a bold and open act of defiance by any state. Usually such matters are fudged. Countries stretch the line, but do not actually cross it. With condign...(Read Full Post)